Celebrities Photography Competition - 3rd Place

Congratulations to Ashley Franklin with this image entitled 'Brian Griffin'.

Ashley tells us ''The portrait of Brian Griffin is one of my favourites. As well as being a photographer, I’m a feature writer for Derbyshire Life magazine and I went to interview Brian as he had a major exhibition at Derby Art Gallery as part of the FORMAT Photo Festival. As Brian is a renowned portrait photographer, he hardly needed direction. Wearing the coat was his idea as was his rather steely gaze. From that, you might think that all I needed to do was get the exposure right (f2.8 at 1/50 sec on my Canon 5D Mk II) and press the shutter. Not so… I like to think that what enhanced the portrait was the choice of backdrop. That was MY input. As we were in the art gallery, I saw this striking painting of an escalator. Placing Brian in front of it gave that extra dynamism to the shot.

It seemed to work as I got a call from Brian a few weeks later, telling me that he was due to receive the Royal Photographic Society’s greatest honour - the Centenary Medal – and could he use my portrait to project on to the screen when he received his award? This was one of those occasions when you don’t ask for a fee! I felt greatly honoured.

What’s more, as a result of his photo also appearing in the RPS magazine, f2 Freelance Photographer magazine ran a 7-page feature on me. And here I am, coming third in this Societies competition. You could say this portrait has been good to me!''

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1st Place see HERE
2nd Place see HERE
3rd Place see HERE
Highly Commended images see HERE